by Blake, Jill
“I thought you’d given up on me,” she said.
“Never.” His lips claimed hers in a kiss that went on and on. When they finally broke for air, he murmured, “Where’s Ben?”
“At my parents’.”
“How long?”
“Another few hours.”
“We’ll pick him up together.” He tugged her toward the door. “After.”
“Okay,” she said, fitting her key into the lock. “But I have to warn you, the house is empty. No furniture, no rugs—”
“No problem.” He nudged her inside, then lifted her up, hands supporting her bottom. She clutched his shoulders for support. A wave of heat engulfed her as he pressed her back against the door. “You’re not going to make me wait, are you?”
“No…”
“Good.” He nipped the skin along her jaw. “It’s time I met your parents.”
“What?”
Her thoughts scattered as he worked his way down to her breast. With her legs wrapped around his hips, he was able to free a hand and work it under her dress. His fingers traced up her vertebrae and ribs, flicking open the closure of her bra. The pad of his thumb brushed her already rigid nipple. “How soon can you move in?”
She blinked, trying to make sense of the words. “I just signed a lease.”
“Break it.”
“I can’t,” she gasped.
“You can. We’re getting married.”
“Wait—”
He ground against her. “I’ve waited enough.”
“But—”
“Something small, low-key. Unless you want a big wedding…?”
She shook her head, barely able to follow the conversation. His fingers drifted down again, tugging, pushing aside material. She’d never realized how easy scrub pants were to undo, or how flimsy the lace of high-end panties could be. He slid inside her, and she bit her lip against the flood of pleasure the movement triggered.
“July,” he panted, punctuating each word with another thrust. “Good month for a wedding.”
She closed her eyes as the climax hit. He shuddered against her, fingers digging into her skin.
As her pulse slowed, she smiled and wriggled for him to release her. Slowly, his fingers relaxed and allowed her to slide down, until her feet touched the floor.
“So we’re agreed?” he said, once they were both dressed—though the panties were a complete loss and would have to be tossed.
Why not? A year would be enough time to figure things out, ease into the idea of living together, plan a small ceremony for family and friends. “Sure.”
He grinned and kissed her soundly. “Great. Let’s go home. I need to shower and change before meeting your parents.”
“You go on. I’ll take a quick look around, make sure I didn’t leave anything behind.”
“I’ll wait.”
She walked through the empty rooms. There were a lot of memories in this house. She’d moved in as a newlywed, naïve and optimistic. She’d become a mother, and a trophy wife, and then a caregiver to her dying husband. She’d lost her illusions here, and discovered her own strength. But she was ready to move on now. Ready to embrace the love that awaited her. Ready to build a future with Max and Ben.
###
They drove to the Valley in her minivan.
“I’m thinking about getting a bigger car,” he said.
“You’re getting rid of the Ferrari?”
He flinched. “Not exactly. But we could probably use an SUV, right? Install a car seat or two in the back.”
“A booster seat, you mean?”
He studied her profile as she drove. “We didn’t use anything today.”
She glanced at him briefly before turning her attention back to the road. “I’m on the pill.”
“Since when?”
“Since the last time we had this conversation.”
Was that disappointment he felt? Until recently, he’d never considered himself father material. But with Eva, and Ben, he had undergone a sea change. And that pregnancy scare nearly seven weeks ago started him thinking. The idea had definite appeal.
“You don’t need it anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m going to be thirty-seven next month. You’re thirty-four. Neither of us is getting any younger.”
“And your point…?”
“We should work on giving Ben a younger brother or sister. The sooner, the better.”
She shook her head.
“I’m serious.”
“I’d rather not be pregnant during the wedding.”
He grinned. “Even if you got off the pill today, and everything worked the first time, we still wouldn’t know you’re pregnant until at least a couple weeks after the wedding.”
“What?” She frowned. “But you said July.”
“Yes, and July’s half over.”
“I thought you meant next year!”
His smile faltered. “You agreed. You’re not backing out now, are you?”
Instead of answering, she eased into the right-hand lane and pulled off at the next exit.
“Are we low on gas?” he said when she turned into a gas station just off the freeway.
“No.” She parked near the back, undid her seatbelt, and got out.
He followed, alarmed at her pallor. “What’s going on?”
“I think I’m having my first panic attack.”
He wrapped his arms around her, absorbing into himself the frantic hammering of her heart, the periodic tremors of her body. His hand stroked up and down her back, a slow mesmerizing rhythm. When he felt her muscles ease, he murmured, “I love you, Eva. That’s not going to change, okay?”
She nodded against his chest.
“If you want, we can push the wedding off till next month.”
She made a half-hiccupping, half-choking sound and tried to pull away.
He wouldn’t let her. “You promised you wouldn’t make me wait.”
“Max…”
“Eva…”
“This is happening too fast.”
“I disagree. It can’t happen fast enough.”
She mumbled something against his shirt.
“What’s that?”
She lifted her head. “You’re impossible.”
He smiled and dropped a kiss on her lips. “But you love me anyway.”
“Yes,” she sighed, leaning into him. “I do.”
~The End~
Without a Net ~ Family Tree
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Turn the page for excerpts from Jill Blake’s Doctors of Rittenhouse Square trilogy:
Pursued by the Playboy (Book 1) ~ Kate & Marc
Taking a Chance (Book 2) ~ Samantha & Alex
This Time for Keeps (Book 3) ~ Isabelle & Luca
Now available for download from Amazon!
Pursued by the Playboy
(Doctors of Rittenhouse Square, Book 1)
by Jill Blake
A bachelor who's finally looking to settle down meets a career-driven woman who doesn't believe in love...
Kate Warner isn't interested in romance. After years of bearing silent witness to the disaster zone of her parents' marriage, the last thing Kate wants is a husband and kids. Besides, she's on the fast track to academic success at an Ivy League university.
Enter Dr. Marc DiStefano, star of the university hospital's department of gynecology. Tired of the Barbie-doll wanna-be's of his past, he's looking to settle down. And he's set his sights on Kate.
...That's when the problems begin.
Chapter 1
Kate Warner tugged up the low-cut bodice of her black gown. In a closet full of functional clothes, it was the only item that fit
tonight’s dress code. If only she didn’t feel so exposed wearing it. She glanced around at the clusters of guests in evening couture. Jewels that cost more than her annual salary winked beneath the chandeliers of Philadelphia’s Four Seasons ballroom. Her own neck and hands felt conspicuously bare.
“Stop fidgeting,” Jake murmured at her side. “You look fine.”
She sighed. “Right. This from the man who wears cowboy boots for every occasion.”
“Don’t get snippy,” he said. “They’re Luchesse Classics. Hand-tooled leather, custom made.”
“Of course.” She glanced down. The boots were black and polished to a high sheen. But here, at a fundraising gala for ovarian cancer research, thirty-plus miles from the nearest horse ranch, they were as out of place as Kate herself.
He flashed a grin. “Come on, let’s find our table. Looks like the festivities are about to begin.”
Kate’s palms started sweating again, the satin clutch in one hand nearly slipping as she followed Jake through the crowd. She’d rather spend Saturday night getting a Brazilian wax. Or filling out budget justification forms in triplicate. But as one of tonight’s honorees, she didn’t have the option of not showing.
It could have been worse. Instead of Jake at her side, she could have braved the crowd alone. A faint shudder rippled through her.
Or she could have attempted to mediate a cease-fire between her parents earlier that evening. But the likelihood of such a truce breaking down midway through dinner had her phoning Jake in a panic. By the time he pulled up to the curb where she was waiting, her stomach burned from the three ibuprofen she had dug up from her overnight bag and swallowed dry.
“Thanks for rescuing me,” she said now, as they took their seats. “I could’ve called a taxi, but…”
“No worries. Besides, I love rubbery chicken and overcooked peas. I hear that’s what they’re serving tonight.”
“Seriously, Jake, I appreciate it.”
“Enough to foot dinner for two at Vetri?”
She draped her silk shawl over the back of her chair. “I don’t do haute cuisine.”
“Not you. Jennifer. I bailed tonight, told her it was a family emergency.”
“Oh, no—I’m so sorry, you should have told me. I wouldn’t have asked you to come if I’d known.” She hesitated. “So is it serious?”
“You know me, I don’t do serious. Besides, I’ll make it up to her later.” He wagged his brows, Groucho Marx style. “And it’s not like I lied. You are family. My parents still hope we’ll eventually get together.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, they’d disown you if you ever brought home a shiksa.”
“Not if that shiksa were you.” He paused. When she didn’t respond, he sighed and changed the subject. “So, what set off the fireworks tonight?”
Between her father’s slap-dash attitude toward fidelity and her mother’s rages, anything could have triggered a fight. Kate had lost count of the nights she’d spent during adolescence with the covers pulled over her head, praying her parents would finally divorce. The only lull in hostilities occurred when her father was away on business. If he was gone too long, though, Kate’s mother would focus her rage on whatever came within striking distance.
Kate learned early to keep quiet and out of sight, the better to avoid her mother’s temper. Through hard work, luck, and the mentoring of several sympathetic teachers along the way, she managed to escape to university at sixteen. That her parents were together years later and still locked in acrimonious battle was something she no longer even tried to understand.
Tonight she had hoped would be different. That at least for a few hours they could be civil to one another, just long enough to witness their only daughter receive an award as “Top Junior Researcher of the Year,” along with the hefty check that would fund her lab work for another three years.
“Kate?”
She picked up her cream linen napkin and adjusted it on her lap. “They were supposed to meet me at the train station this afternoon.” She fiddled with the silverware beside her plate. “No one was there, of course. I walked. It’s not far—half a mile, maybe. They didn’t hear me come in. I waited to see if things would die down, but...” She shrugged. “I changed, called you, and left them a note.”
Jake’s hand covered hers, stilling her fingers. He knew all about her parents’ dysfunctional relationship, had tried to protect her from it. Instead of returning home between semesters during college and grad school, she had tagged along with Jake to the rambling farmhouse in Montgomery County where his mother would envelop her in a lavender-scented hug and ply her matzo ball soup. Jake’s father, a soft-spoken professor whose books on Cold War diplomacy informed and molded an entire generation, treated her like a favored student. They’d sip tea and debate politics late into the night, solving the world’s problems around the kitchen table.
She missed those discussions. Even before Jake’s parents had retired to Boca Raton, Kate’s visits had grown infrequent. Her time got eaten up by graduation, a post-doc that had taken her to the opposite coast, and finally a tenure-track position with endless hours doing bench-work, writing up results, supervising students. She wondered sometimes how she’d allowed her world to get so narrow.
Jake cleared his throat. “You okay?”
The screech of a microphone from the podium interrupted. Kate shook her head and turned to the front of the room, where the evening’s host began his introduction.
###
As the speeches wound down, Marc DiStefano shifted in his chair and glanced at his watch. The one night he wouldn’t have minded getting called in to the hospital, his phone was silent. Without work as an excuse, he couldn’t very well walk out. His family had supported tonight’s cause for too many years. Besides, he’d already noted a few familiar faces in the crowd: fellow physicians—including the chief of his own department of gynecologic oncology—who would certainly remark on his leaving early.
He sighed. Across the table, his sister Emma frowned at him. Her husband gave Marc a sympathetic look. The audience began applauding, and belatedly Marc joined in. As the noise died down, he glanced toward the podium and stilled.
A woman stood at the microphone, her face framed by wisps of chestnut hair. Her mouth was just a little too wide for her face, her jaw a bit too blunt. But the rest of her was perfect: high breasts, curvy hips, and legs that went on forever.
Marc glanced down at the program, skimming to the end:
Katherine Warner. Recipient of this year’s Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation Award for Top Junior Researcher. Dr. Warner received her PhD in Cell & Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently the youngest faculty member in the CMB Department. Her work focuses on identifying novel biomarkers for the screening and early detection of ovarian cancer.
Her husky voice washed over him. “This year in the United States, twenty-two thousand women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Fourteen thousand will die. Despite the fact that ovarian cancer accounts for only three percent of cancers among women, it causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive tract. Why? Because there is no screening for ovarian cancer. By the time most women get diagnosed, malignant cells have already spread beyond the ovary. The five-year survival rate for advanced ovarian cancer is less than forty-five percent. Compare that to ninety percent survival for women who get diagnosed early.”
Marc glanced around at the rapt audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this needs to change. We need to find a way to screen for ovarian cancer, so we can diagnose it early and treat it before it spreads. Thanks to the Foundation’s generous support, we can continue to work toward this critical goal.”
Applause brought his attention to the front of the room again, in time to see Katherine Warner’s delectable backside retreating from view. He shot up, ignoring the napkin that dropped from his lap to the floor, and his family’s surprise at his abrupt departure from the table.
He was tall enough that he could see above most of the crowd to where she stood, surrounded now by well-wishers. Her shoulders appeared tense, the cords standing out in her neck when she turned her head, gaze sweeping around as if looking for an exit. For a moment those eyes rested on him, and he felt as if he were drowning in a blue so dark it was almost black. His lungs seized. Then a thick fringe of lashes swept down and he was able to breathe again.
In the background he vaguely heard the sound of chairs scraping, glassware clinking, an orchestra tuning up. He cut through the people separating them and stopped directly in front of her. She was smaller than she had appeared on the podium, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder.
“Congratulations, Professor.” He captured her hand mid-gesture. Her fingers fluttered against his, and a jolt of sensation shot up his arm. “Marc DiStefano. I work at Penn, too.”
“Really.” She tugged her hand from his. “Which department?”
“Gyn onc. At the hospital,” he clarified. “So what you discover, I’ll hopefully implement.”
Her smile was cool. “Nice meeting you, Dr. DiStefano.”
“Marc, please. Otherwise it gets confusing. Too many of us answer to the same name.” He glanced toward the other end of the ballroom, where couples were beginning to sway to the music. “Would you like to dance?”
“Thank you, but I don’t—“
“Just one dance, Professor.” His fingers brushed her arm, and she shivered. “It’ll give me a chance to pick your brain.”
The brief flash of teeth biting her lip made him want to run his thumb—or better yet, his tongue—over that bottom lip. Before he could do anything rash that would embarrass them both, she gave an abrupt nod. Clearly the appeal to her intellect had done the trick. “Excuse me,” she murmured to the other guests who still stood in a semi-circle around her.
Marc cupped her elbow and led her toward the space that had been cleared for dancing. They came together like pieces of a puzzle: her soft fingers enfolded in his firm grip, her silk-clad breasts grazing his chest, her legs brushing against his. Her scent filled his nostrils, a delicate blend of citrus and jasmine and something else, something uniquely her—soft and clean and alluring. He felt his body responding, and wished he could whisk her away to someplace more private, where he could lose himself completely in her embrace.